Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday of April. The tradition of planting trees on this day began in Nebraska in 1872. Soon, other states passed legislation to set up Arbor Day in their states, and the tradition began in schools in 1882.
There are an estimated 3 trillion trees on Earth. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — For nearly 100 days, President Donald Trump has rattled Washington and been chastened by its institutions.
He’s startled world leaders with his unpredictability and tough talk, but won their praise for a surprise strike on Syria.
He’s endured the steady drip of ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an Associated Press interview, President Donald Trump claimed more progress than he’s achieved on his 100-day plan and showed he was not completely familiar with what he had promised in that “contract” with voters.
A look at some of his assertions in the interview ...

It took him awhile — long enough that even some Republicans started wondering — but U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman finally got around to holding what was billed as town hall meetings last week. The Upper Peninsula session, at Escanaba’s Bay College, was one of two the freshman congressman and ...

WASHINGTON — In his first annual message to Congress, John Quincy Adams, among the most experienced and intellectually formidable presidents, warned leaders against giving the impression that “we are palsied by the will of our constituents.” In this regard, if in no other, the 45th ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is heading into one of the most challenging weeks of his presidency, juggling a renewed health care push and a looming budget deadline. It’s all complicated by a potential showdown with Democrats over paying for a border wall.
The symbolic 100-day ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The leader of a bipartisan good-government group, Zach Wamp, headed to the White House last week to ask whether President Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” slogan would ever be more than a throwaway campaign slogan. One of the president’s closest aides, Steve Bannon, ...

A couple articles in The Daily News about roads and bridges and the Michigan Department of Transportation recently drew my attention.
Now that our plates and gas taxes have gone up, it seems MDOT officials have lost all common sense and spent it all on roundabouts. Why take out a $5,000 ...

Next week, on Saturday, April 29, communities will team up with law enforcement to host a National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day.
Prescription medications play an important role in the health of millions of Americans. However, expired medications or unused drugs often stay in the back of ...

Last Saturday, I had my granddaughter for the weekend. She loves to see beautiful unique scenery, so I took her to see the Sturgeon River hydraulic dam.
As I was turning around to head home, I got stuck in the mud, and in deep, too.
Some men came to help me out with a truck and ...

EDITOR:
It’s not too early to start thinking about Little League baseball. A great organization where the coaches give of their time for the love of the game.
Games are rotated between Iron Mountain, Kingsford, and Breitung Township.
Most fields have bleachers but some do not.
Perhaps ...

Let’s describe the problem with an example. A few years ago, Southern California Edison employed 300 foreign tech workers through the H-1B visa program. They took the jobs of American IT specialists who suffered the added indignity of having to train their replacements.
The foreign workers ...

WASHINGTON — The Facebook video of a homicide was surely inevitable.
This isn’t the same as saying that video murders soon will become all the rage, but it was more likely to happen eventually than not.
Forget the suspected killer Steve Stephens, who took his own life Tuesday after a ...

Will President Trump ever release his tax returns?
Quizzed on that issue earlier this week, Trump press secretary Sean Spicer responded, “We’ll have to get back to you on that.”
According to the president, an ongoing Internal Revenue Service audit prevents him from releasing his ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Despite the inglorious end to Bill O’Reilly’s two-decade Fox News Channel career, observers say his deep imprint on Fox and other cable news outlets and his influence on barbed political discourse are intact for the foreseeable future.
Fired on Wednesday amid a ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was huge.
Big money from billionaires, corporations and a roster of NFL owners poured into Donald Trump’s inaugural committee in record-shattering amounts — to pull off an event that was considerably lower-key than previous inaugural celebrations.
That leaves a ...

The green of spring is coming — but not quickly enough just yet to prevent a thunderstorm, a carelessly flicked cigarette or sparks from a metal chain dragging behind a truck from potentially setting the fields or woodlands aflame.
At this time of year, perhaps more than any other, the ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s claim Tuesday he’s accomplished more than anyone at this point of a presidency flies in the face of history.
A look at a few of his statements at a Wisconsin tool company and an earlier interview with Fox:
TRUMP: “No administration has ...

Thanks to the beneficence of the federal government (and the calendar), we Americans had until midnight on April 18 to file our income taxes. It’s too bad filing taxes wasn’t an easier process.
President Trump has pledged to reform our tax code, which, to most people, currently reads like ...